The Wilderness of Ruin

A Tale of Madness, Fire, and the Hunt for America's Youngest Serial Killer

Roseanne Montillo

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780062273499
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In late nineteenth-century Boston, home to Herman Melville and Oliver Wendell Holmes, a serial killer preying on children is running loose in the city—a wilderness of ruin caused by the Great Fire of 1872—in this literary historical crime thriller reminiscent of The Devil in the White City.

In the early 1870s, local children begin disappearing from the working-class neighborhoods of Boston. Several return home bloody and bruised after being tortured, while others never come back.

With the city on edge, authorities believe the abductions are the handiwork of a psychopath, until they discover that their killer—fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy—is barely older than his victims. The criminal investigation that follows sparks a debate among the world's most revered medical minds, and will have a decades-long impact on the judicial system and medical consciousness.

The Wilderness of Ruin is a riveting tale of gruesome murder and depravity. At its heartis a great American city divided by class—a chasm that widens in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1872. Roseanne Montillo brings Gilded Age Boston to glorious life—from the genteel cobblestone streets of Beacon Hill to the squalid, overcrowded tenements of Southie. Here, too, is the writer Herman Melville. Enthralled by the child killer's case, he enlists physician Oliver Wendell Holmes to help him understand how it might relate to his own mental instability.

With verve and historical detail, Roseanne Montillo explores this case that reverberatedthrough all of Boston society in order to help us understand our modern hunger for the prurient and sensational.

The Wilderness of Ruin features more than a dozen black-and-white photographs.

CHAPTER 1

THE INHUMAN SCAMP

The Sandman’s coming in his train of cars
With moonbeams windows and with wheels of stars
So hush you little ones and have no fear
The man-in-the-moon is the engineer

—“THE SANDMAN”

In the spring of 1872, a twelve-year-old boy scurried across the bridge that led from Charlestown into the city of Chelsea. He had made his way across the wooden planks before, running southward along Bunker Hill Avenue and leaving behind Lexington Street, where his family had once lived and where he had been born on November 29, 1859. His mother had despised that apartment and the sheer smallness of it, despised the muddy streets that flooded with muck from the rain and the horse excrement from the animals passing by; despised the scum that collected at the water’s edge from the factories nearby, and the stench that arose in the summer from the tanneries doing business across the bridges. Still, the boy had enjoyed the closeness to the stagnant river.

Their new home, on 78 Bunker Hill Avenue, was slightly larger. It was located just steps away from the Bunker Hill Monument, which recalled the opening battle of the American Revolution. That battle had occurred on June 17, 1775, on Breed’s Hill, where troops led by Colonel Prescott, General Putnam, and Major Brooks had fought against the British. It was also there that General Putnam uttered the infamous words “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!”

The monument was completed in 1845—well before the boy’s birth. President John Tyler attended the opening celebrations, while the famed Daniel Webster had given a stirring oration, imparting such inspirational words as “Let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming, let the earliest light of the morning gilded it, and parting day linger and play on its summit.”

People who visited the area on quiet afternoons were often struck by the monument, an obelisk of Egyptian-inspired design with a gilt urn pointing skyward.

But living in the shadows of such a historical marker meant very little as far as the boy’s mother was concerned; it was the actual space of the apartment she was worried about. The boy cared even less. For him it was the proximity to the bridge that mattered, as it linked Charlestown to Chelsea.

Not far from his own home, the boy came across the Navy Yard, a sprawling compound occupying nearly one-eighth of the land in Charlestown. As busy as some of the navy yards in larger cities, it made a brisk business of building and repairing boats and ships and employed thousands not only from Charlestown but also from the surrounding areas. Every day these men could be seen hurrying to and fro on landings for transatlantic steamers such as the Warren Line, which traveled from Boston to Liverpool, England. But workers were also hired at several distilleries, their fumes emanating from long smokestacks by the wharves day and night; at the state prison, that large and imposing institution that swallowed up the better part of the Charlestown landscape; and at the McLean Asylum for the Insane, which had opened its doors in October 1818.

Near the Navy Yard there existed one of the few empty plots of land that opened out into “pasture” land, as it was called, which backed up into a dilapidated warehouse called Moulton’s Hall. This stretch of land had a very low beach ringed by willow trees, and in the summer the children of the area scampered there with lunch pails and long fishing poles. The boy had gone there many times before with his brother, Charles, when they were much younger. But now Charles no longer cared for fishing. Twenty months the boy’s senior, Charles had lately taken more of a shine to the neighborhood girls, even trying to grow a faint mustache to impress them.

Though it was already spring, that day of 1872 had dawned gray and sleety as the boy crossed the Chelsea Bridge. He could detect the delicate smell of confections and bonbons emanating from Schrafft’s Candy Company mingling with the strong scents coming from the nearby factories brewing ale. He did not stop to glance at the lead-colored waters of the Mystic River rushing below him, which bordered Charlestown to the west, but instead he held on tightly to the white-handled pocketknife, several yards of rope, and a tight bundle of fabric he had brought along with him.

Any businessmen on their way into the city would not have paid any attention to him as they passed one another. Prior to the bridge’s development, the trip from Chelsea into Boston had been a roundabout horse ordeal that took the better part of two days. When the ferry service was started in 1631, the first of its kind in the country, it made the ride across the Mystic much shorter, albeit more dangerous. But the bridge, built in 1803, gave Chelsea new life.

Crossing it from Broadway in Chelsea into the lower end of Charlestown now took only a short while, and farmers and businessmen could come and go freely carrying their products: fruits, vegetables, meats, milks, eggs, and cheeses to sell to grocers in the city. Though the bridge was now old and would soon require a great deal of refurbishing, the city of Charlestown was still in charge of paying nearly two-thirds of its upkeep. But commercialists didn’t care about such details. Those who were busy with such matters of commerce and opportunity would not even notice a boy’s comings and goings. He became part of the landscape.

Quiet and pleasant in the early 1800s, that area of Chelsea, even its waters, held beauty and tradition. It was not uncommon for the Baptist Society to hold its Sunday baptismal ceremonies in the Mystic River, groups of families gathering at its banks wearing their Sunday best and looking on as a minister dunked a small child into the chilly waters.

But that ended with the advent of the ferry, and more important, with the bridge, as the area around Chelsea’s waterfront began to develop, industrialists eyeing not its charms but how cheap and convenient it was.

Most of the people in town had been happy to see Chelsea grow. But the wealthy, those who had summered on the waters and who had mansions located in and around the waterfront, found the new changes deplorable. Factories began to sprout: coal, from the Campbell & Company Coal Wharves; wood, from George D. Emery Enterprises, whose mahogany was shipped all the way from South America. James S. Green even opened a stable for horses, not only selling them but even lending them out, the stable becoming larger and larger with each passing year. The factories fronting the river turned their backs to the mansions, their smoke and soot obscuring the water’s views. And as more opportunities arrived, so did more people.

The stately homes were replaced by cheap lodging for the factory workers and everything else that was needed for their care and entertainment: a ramshackle doctor’s office, a small grocery store, even a tavern and a vaudeville theater. Where once there arose the fragrant smell of blooming gardenias, now residents had to accept the pungent odor of fresh horse manure littering the streets. Eventually the wealthy left the riverfront and gravitated inland, and without their money to keep up the area’s physical appearance, it took on a dingy look that reeked of despair.

It was here that the boy from Charlestown headed.

EIGHT-YEAR-OLD ROBERT MAIER WAS the son of local factory workers who made their home in Chelsea and had lived there for several years. As they did for all the other children of the area’s factory workers, the streets had become Robert’s playground. These were now a plethora of untidy backyards, broken porches overgrown with leaves and refuse, and mangy dogs scavenging for food and chasing after rats. On this day Robert was spending a late afternoon flinging pebbles across his small messy garden, as he had done many times before. It was a cold day, the brisk wind carried off from the Mystic River banging the shutters of those homes nearby.

Not long after he began his game, a boy he did not recognize, a bigger boy than himself, approached him. Of course, Robert’s parents had told him to stay close to home and speak to no one. But this bigger boy smiled as he neared Robert. He seemed friendly and, besides, Robert reasoned, he was a boy like himself. He was much taller than Robert and had to bend over substantially to collect several rocks from the mound Robert had gathered on the ground. The big boy quickly aimed the rocks at a gate nearby and at a window, loudly shattering it, until soon he became bored. He told Robert they should take a walk.

Remembering his parents’ words, Robert hesitated, and in sensing his misgivings, the boy from across the river told him the circus had arrived in town and wouldn’t he like to go and see it.

In 1872, P. T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie Caravan and Circus train began to travel the country’s railways, stopping at the many industrial communities. Like all the other children, Robert had heard about the penguins from Antarctica and the lions from the savannas of Africa, how conjoined twins twisted their limbs like pretzels and about the ladies with long beards they groomed like men’s; he’d also heard about the armless women who knitted fancy wear with their toes; and the ancient mummies arising from sarcophagi, and the vivisected animals, and the freaks of all kinds. Robert had never seen any of the wonders the big boy was describing, but they seemed fun. A curious boy, he could not refuse such an enticing invitation.

As they sauntered away from Robert’s street, suddenly the big boy turned away from the main road and followed a quieter one, leading not toward the town’s center, where he had told Robert the circus had set up its tents, but into a more rustic lane that led forward onto Powder Horn Hill. In 1634 an attorney named Richard Bellingham had moved from Boston, England, to Boston, Massachusetts. In his new home, he had ascended to the ranks of lieutenant governor, and although he had made his permanent home in Boston, he had also purchased an expanse of land in Chelsea, where he had built a large estate on a slope he had named Powder Horn Hill. From there, he said, if he stood on the summit, he could see across all the way to Boston, and if he stretched far enough, perhaps to his childhood home of Boston, England.

But that was many years ago, and the grandeur of the estate and of Powder Horn Hill had now disappeared and only decaying shacks remained, those that had once belonged to servants. One could still see the city, but the hill had become lonely, isolated. Nearby swished a small, murky pond where dead leaves floated in winter and tiny inedible fishes swam in the summer.

Whether or not Robert worried about the boy’s change of direction is uncertain, but he became aware of his intentions soon enough, when the boy unexpectedly lifted him off the ground and catapulted him into the pond. Robert struggled to get back to the pond’s edges, but the boy pushed him underwater, as if wanting to drown him. Moments later the boy lifted him out, and though Robert tried to free himself, he could not, because the big boy was very strong and held on firmly before shoving him to the ground. That’s when Robert felt something heavy land on the back of his head; he blacked out.

Robert woke up as tiny flashes of light crossed his eyes and pain riddled his body. He was being dragged by his neck along a quiet road that felt bumpy against his aching limbs. He and the boy arrived at a small and dilapidated outhouse on top of Powder Horn Hill. Its smell was so rotten that Robert nearly gagged. Though he tried to scream, the boy quieted him by pushing a piece of rag into his mouth. The boy ripped the clothes from Robert’s body, stripping him completely naked until he shivered. Then, using the rope he had brought along, he fastened Robert to a wooden beam. The rope cut deeply into the little boy’s flesh.

Robert was now fully conscious and could hear the boy’s giggles as he danced around him, laughing and jumping back and forth, spewing out lewd words, over and over. Frightened, Robert watched as the boy crossed the small space and picked up a wooden stick. He then neared Robert and like a dog sniffed him; the terror he noticed in Robert seemed to thrill him, for with a smile, he landed the stick over his body, hitting Robert across his chest, his legs, and his genitals. The rag in his mouth prevented Robert from screaming, but he could feel the pain intensely. Moments later, the boy took the rag from his mouth and told him not to make a sound, and simply to do what he was being told. Robert nodded. Then the boy told him to repeat the words he said, foul words Robert had been told never to whisper out loud.

Profanity was not allowed in Robert’s home, and his parents punished him and his siblings if they ever heard them whisper such things. But the boy was big and bad, and the wooden stick painful, so Robert did as he was told. And as he repeated the words, he noticed something peculiar: although his parents didn’t approve, the boy seemed to like them very much. The louder Robert uttered them, the giddier the boy became. Soon even the boy’s breathing changed. Robert saw that the boy now inhaled very sharply. He even roughly unbuckled his belt and began groping inside his pants. Robert didn’t understand but said the dirty words over and over, louder and louder, until the boy screamed, closed his eyes, and fell to the floor in great spasms.

Sometime later, a man walking through the area became aware of a strange moaning. The sound seemed to come from up high in the hill, but it could easily have been the wind rustling through the empty interiors of those abandoned houses or from any of the small animals that had found shelter there for birthing their litters. But as the murmuring became more insistent, the man rushed toward it, leading him to the outhouse, where he found not a cat in labor, but a numbed little boy hanging from a rope tied around the center beam, his naked body limp and bloodied and covered in bruises, his lips a peculiar shade of purple due to the cold spring air that entered through the wood’s opening.

THE CHELSEA POLICE WERE shocked, but not entirely surprised to find Robert in such brutal conditions. Lately there had been a “regular epidemic of crime . . . in which little children figured as the victims.” Someone had been lurking along the Chelsea waterfront and luring little boys away from their families. The city marshal, Mr. Drury, had already issued a warning. On February 21, prior to the attack on Robert, another boy, ten-year-old Tracy Hayden, had also been induced to follow an older boy to Powder Horn Hill, where he had also been stripped, whipped, and manhandled. But in that case, the big boy, as Tracy had called him, had shown some measure of consideration after he was finished with his doings and had rearranged Tracy’s clothing and walked him back to his neighborhood. Tracy had not been able to provide a detailed description for the police. He had simply stated that while playing in the streets, he had been approached by a boy he had not recognized, a boy he recalled as being older, bigger, and taller than himself.

And even before that, on the very day after Christmas 1871, a younger boy, Billy Paine, had been subjected to a similar attack, then found suspended from a roofbeam, his hands coiled with a rope and crying like a newborn kitten.

In Robert’s case, the demon—as the boy was nicknamed after the spring ordeal—had followed more or less the same routine: he had approached him and befriended him in a soft and somewhat friendly manner; he had told a convincing story, in this case using the arrival of the circus in town; he had then directed the little boy to an abandoned shack no one would go to if not on purpose; there he had beaten him, laughed at him, become sexually excited, and used profanity. But this time he had not taken him home and instead had abandoned him to the elements.

Robert, Tracy, and Billy were the latest in a long string of assaults. The torturer’s ruse had worked on several others, who instead of money, sweets, and visits to the circus had been met with vicious beatings. Police and the general populace speculated as to how the demon had managed to retreat so noiselessly into the shadows without anyone observing him. Some even suggested that he had melted into Chelsea’s back alleys like the fog brought forth from the river. Perhaps he had been concealed by the general gloominess of the area, they reasoned, or the intertwining roads that led him far from the spot.

More likely, the police believed, it had simply been his age that had allowed him to go unnoticed. Who would think a boy capable of such horror? Local parents were as stricken as they were horrified, and together with neighbors formed a vigilante group. Arming themselves with wooden clubs, firearms, and even knives, they began to patrol the area, intent on bringing the fiend to justice. They also placed a five-hundred-dollar bounty on his head, knowing that the prospect of money would now unleash a hunt upon the newly rechristened Boy Torturer.

SOME YEARS BEFORE, IN 1867, Boston had commemorated the end of the Civil War with the National Peace Jubilee. It was such a success, they decided to celebrate the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 with the World Peace Jubilee and International Music Festival. The man behind the festivities was an Irish bandleader named Patrick S. Gilmore, a man who believed that music could bridge a gap not only between nations but between people. The city agreed, and for months prior to the event, set for June 1872, Bostonians readied themselves almost without regard for anything else.

Mayor William Gaston knew that the country and the world at lar...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Contents
• Prologue
• Chapter 1: The Inhuman Scamp
• Chapter 2: The Bridge
• Chapter 3: The Marble Eye
• Chapter 4: The Boundless Sea
• Chapter 5: The Great Fire
• Chapter 6: Loss of Innocence
• Chapter 7: Katie
• Chapter 8: The Wolf and the Lamb
• Chapter 9: The Twisted Mind
• Chapter 10: Patience Personified Pomeroy
• Chapter 11: Madness Unleashed
• Chapter 12: Unearthed
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Also by Roseanne Montillo
• Copyright
• About the Publisher